‘The First Cigarette Feels Like Harmless Time. It Isn’t’: Allahabad HC Judge’s Poem On Tobacco Smoking

“The first cigarette feels like harmless time / It isn’t. Trust the cough, not what I said at twenty, full of swagger, sure and free,” Allahabad High Court judge Justice Shekhar B Saraf wrote in a poem recounting his own experience with tobacco smoking, as a division bench, also comprising Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary, dismissed a batch of petitions seeking permission to operate hookah bars in Uttar Pradesh.

Justice Saraf, who authored the judgment, also recorded that a single hookah session lasting about an hour involves an estimated 200 puffs and is equivalent in harm to smoking 100 cigarettes. He wrote, “It is a myth that hookah is less harmful than cigarettes,” adding that hookah is “as addictive as a cigarette, as harmful as a cigarette, and contains the same toxic chemicals as a cigarette".

The division bench delivered the judgment on September 29, 2026, answering in the negative the question whether hookah bars can lawfully operate and provide hookah services in designated smoking areas in public places in Uttar Pradesh.

Why did court reject hookah service in designated smoking areas?

Court held that the 2017 amendment to the Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules, 2008 had changed the position by replacing the expression “no other service” with “no service” in Rule 4(3).

According to the court, this meant that no service of any nature could be provided in a designated smoking area. This included food, beverages, tobacco products, herbal products and hookah. Court said the designated smoking area was only a limited statutory exception to the general prohibition on smoking in public places and could not be treated as an extension of a restaurant's normal service area.

The bench also rejected the argument that restaurants could avoid the prohibition by preparing hookahs outside the smoking area and allowing customers to operate them themselves.

It noted that hookah smoking requires the apparatus to be technically prepared, including filling the base with water, placing tobacco in the bowl, preparing the foil and heating charcoal. Court said such preparation requires persons with specific knowledge and training and cannot realistically operate as a self-service model for ordinary patrons.

The right to clean air

Court held that providing hookah involved “service” because restaurants supplied the apparatus and tobacco and staff were required to provide assistance such as replenishing charcoal, cleaning ashes and changing tobacco.

It further held that the commercial right to conduct business under Article 19(1)(g) could not override the right of non-smokers under Article 21 to breathe clean air without involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke.

Court clarified that the Food Safety department and municipal corporation did not have jurisdiction to issue licences specifically for regulating hookah bars. However, it held that police authorities had powers under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 (COTPA) to enforce its provisions, including powers of search, seizure and confiscation where violations were found.

The petitions arose after a restaurant holding a food-service licence challenged police intervention following a raid and a preventive order alleging unauthorised hookah operations, public nuisance and service of hookah to minors.

Court dismissed all the petitions, holding that operation of hookah bars and rendering of hookah services in restaurants in Uttar Pradesh amounted to a violation of amended Rule 4(3) and the scheme and object of COTPA.

In its epilogue, court also noted that several states had separately banned hookah bars and said Uttar Pradesh should consider similar measures, including stringent punishment for providing hookah service in designated smoking areas. It further observed that a statutory health warning similar to that required on cigarette packets was needed for hookah as well.

Case title: M/s Aftek Foods and Beverages Pvt. Ltd. v. State of U.P. & Others (along with connected writ petitions)

Judgment date: September 29, 2026

Bench: Justice Shekhar B. Saraf and Justice Abdhesh Kumar Chaudhary